Philip Gross

The Invention

Some things barely need to be invented.
They already want to be.
Take this one, waiting, down a long white corridor
that smells of thought, of chalk, of high
ideas, not explosives, not of sweat and certainly
not burning. Possibly the fizz of strip lights
on late, or is it a fly trapped in the plastic hood
above a desk with some monk of ideas
at prayer. Some tick-bite of a problem itching.
Something is waiting, and for us,
because if not for us, then who first, who
worse... It is waiting down a corridor
of ink marks almost like the ones we write in,
send our love in, tot up groceries —
at the end of a long dry white equation
and how can we not try every door?
Because here, at last, behind the screen,
it sits, the sweet solution, smiling.
Forget everything that came before.